Science

4:58 pm

Tue November 30, 2010

Hospitals reveal surgical infection rates

If you ever need elective surgery, more websites keep appearing to help you pick the safest hospital. Now, you can compare all the hospitals in Washington based on their infection rates following some common surgeries.

Lisa McGiffert with Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, has been lobbying for this type of disclosure in all 50 states. She says getting actual infection rates is more useful than other quality data that’s already available, “because surgery is often -- not always, but often -- something that is planned ahead.”

One challenge it poses to average users is data overload -- when they confront a long spreadsheet. McGiffert says, even if it's hard to judge which hospital is safest overall, looking at the information might at least lead to a useful conversation.

“For example, if I were going to a hospital with a high infection rate, I would be asking my doctor or surgeon, ‘Why is the infection rate so high here? And can you talk to me about how I am going to be ensured I am not going to get an infection?’” she says.

A number of other states already publish infection rates online. Currently, if you want to compare hospitals in Washington, some of the information is on the hospital association website, but other data is maintained by the state health department. The new federal health care law will move these reports to a one-stop national database over the next few years.

Hospitals may not love the public scrutiny, but say the comparisons are helping them improve.